The chief of a Kansas police department that recently raided a local newspaper alleged that a reporter lied or misrepresented herself when accessing documents, according to court documents.
The Marion County Record raid, which drew national attention, was led by Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody on Aug. 11. Cody claimed that a reporter lied about her intentions or impersonated someone else when she was gathering the driving records of local businessowner Kari Newell.
Newell previously argued that the paper violated her privacy and committed a crime by gathering the information about her, but the newspaper has maintained their methods were legal.
Reporter Phyllis Zorn had accessed a public website when gathering information about restaurant operator Kari Newell. Zorn had used Newell’s name in the search, and police believed it was identity theft to do so. A source had also given the paper Newell’s date of birth and license number unsolicited.
“Downloading the document involved either impersonating the victim or lying about the reasons why the record was being sought,” Cody claimed.
The raid caused outrage and sparked a debate about press freedoms, as the newspaper’s employees were hindered from doing their job and were forced to work overnight to print the next day’s paper. During the raid, authorities took the newspaper’s computers and a router, plus the personal cellphones of employees.
With four people on staff, the employees rewrote stories and reproduced ads from scratch. The front-page headline of the next day’s paper read: “SEIZED … but not silenced.”
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